By Olivia Cahoon
Part 2 of 2
In-plant printing operations are common in a number of businesses, including churches, utility providers, financial groups, government agencies, insurance agencies, manufacturers, retail, universities, and even U.S. state departments.
Unlike commercial printers, in plants serve the specific needs of its parent company, which determines the majority of its printed output. For U.S. state departments this varies from wide format graphics to business cards and informational mailing.
The State of Oregon
Around 1847, the State of Oregon established Publishing & Distribution—a printing division formed prior to OR becoming a state. Out of 48,000 state employees, the in-plant printing operation includes a staff of 87.
Publishing & Distribution provides printing, mailing, and distribution services to state agencies, counties, and cities. Through its specialized knowledge, public and private partnerships, and statewide perspective the in-plant creates innovative solutions for every specific need and budget.
The printing division offers high-speed digital printing in B&W and full color, inline and offline finishing, and production mail services, including inserting and OCR sorting. It operates from a 53,000 square foot work area in Salem, OR.
Publishing & Distribution produces black and full-color toner output in addition to full-color latex wide format prints. Most of its printed products are destined to the state’s in-house production mail facility for OR citizens. This includes secure print—like checks and warrants, as well as production print work—like informational mailing, brochures, post cards, banners, posters, and variable data.
Today, 100 percent of Publishing & Distribution’s work is digitally printed. While digital technology was previously utilized, the in-plant print provider ceased traditional press operations in 2005 to focus only on digital printing.
According to Tim Hendrix, state printer/administrator, Publishing & Distribution, certain types of work are currently outsourced. “As our digital capabilities increase, less is outsourced.”
Publishing & Distribution is currently under contract with RICOH for all of its digital devices. This includes the InfoPrint 4100 Production Printer with post processing, KODAK Digimaster HD300, KODAK Digimaster HD150, Ricoh Pro 8210, Ricoh Pro C7110X, Ricoh Pro C9100, Ricoh Pro L4160 wide format press, and Ricoh Pro C5200S.
As an in-plant print provider with digital technology, Hendrix cannot imagine not using digital technology. “The speed and flexibility that digital technology gives the in-plant cannot be understated. Today, color digital output rivals traditional offset print,” he comments. Variable data applications are also important to the in-plant printing operation, which he says can only be achieved with digital.
In addition to its digital presses, Publishing & Distribution uses a variety of software; including Ricoh ProcessDirector print workflow management, Barr Systems, Objectif Lune PlanetPress 7 business process and data-drive communication automation, and Rochester Software Associates (RSA) ReadyPrint and QDirect Pro.
RSA’s ReadyPrint is a printer-agnostic prepress software solution that integrates with RSA QDirect. QDirect is an output management solution for enterprises and in plants.
Printing Services
Publishing & Distribution uses a fleet of RICOH devices to handle the State of Oregon’s printing requirements. With 100 percent of its work digitally printed, the state offers a full suite of printing services like quick copying, full color, and variable data.
Click here to read part one of this exclusive online series, Print Goals.
Dec2018, DPS Magazine
